“Two bags of milkweed pods save one life.”
Ceiba trees grow on the island of Java. Before Pearl Harbor was bombed in 1941, many nations imported kapok, the buoyant fiber harvested from Ceiba seed pods, to fill life jackets. After Japan occupied Java, the U.S. scrambled to find a kapok substitute.
Physician and inventor Dr. Boris Berkman discovered that milkweed floss was as bouyant as kapok. Dr. Berkman presented his research to Congress in 1942, then contracted with the government to provide a milkweed pod processing facility in Petoskey, MI. The plant used a milkweed gin he had invented to separate the seeds from the floss.
With many men away at war and women replacing them in jobs on the homefront, Dr. Berkman suggested that children could pick the pods. The appeal went out in various media to schools, scouting organizations, and church groups. During the war, children collected over 12 million pounds of milkweed pods. The floss filled 1.2 million life vests and helped saved thousands of lives.
As an adult, John Oyler of Bridgeville, PA remembered, “We collected milkweed seed pods in onion sacks, then hung them along fences to dry. Later they would be washed and the military would collect the pods. The entire grade school would collect milkweed. We were scared stiff. Everybody wanted to do what we could to help the war effort,”
This wonderful video tells the true story beautifully: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CESY3qpJY6k
Featured Photo: St Joseph County, Michigan - Oct. 1944: Students point to some of the 109 sacks of milkweed pods they gathered. Their teacher (L) Louise Behrend looks on proudly.
From my novel, Dear Nora: Sept. 17, 1944 – Sunday –Nora’s mother writes to her: “You will never guess what I did this afternoon. Our Sunday School superintendent asked me if I’d be a chaperone for a field trip. There’s a nationwide call for children to help pick milkweed pods now through mid-October. The silk fibers inside will be used to fill life jackets. Normally they are filled with fiber from the kapok tree, but all those trees are on Japanese-occupied Java, so milkweed fiber is the best substitute available. We set off in the back of two big hay trucks with 50 children and eight adults. We drove out to Millers farm where milkweed grows in abundance in the hedgerows. We worked from 1- 4 and filled 40 bags. Minor injuries included skinned knees, scratched arms, chiggers, sunburn, and some bruised feelings caused by competition to fill the bags fastest.”